Attack on psychiatry unfounded

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Judi Caler’s Other Voices column crystallizes a major problem in the U.S. today. Of course the public should be forever vigilant against the potential for tyranny, but Ms. Caler’s beliefs go way beyond.

Sandy Hook wasn’t an advocacy opportunity; it shocked the public mind and raised the question: What can we do to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again?

When political discourse resorts to Hitler, Stalin and Mao to make a point, we’re talking propaganda, not rational thought.

The attack on psychiatry is entirely unfounded. Psychiatry is an inexact, but improving science, and it has been and will continue to help the mentally ill. She rejects these “experts” in helping to decide the fitness to carry arms but offers no substitute. I guess she thinks that we should encourage paranoid schizophrenics to carry their AR-15s to the mall.

Beyond the specifics of Ms. Caler’s paranoia is a more malicious concept, a dangerous and destructive one that says don’t trust your government, your institutions or the good-faith efforts of psychiatrists to understand the human mind.

I’m not advocating blind trust, but the alternative is anarchy and the loss of those rights Ms. Caler cherishes the most.